Readers write: Letters to the editor, April 29, 2016

First, we have the fiasco of paying for a fancy new office remodel in downtown Anchorage, or to rent space in the Atwood Building. The Legislature is at a standstill, so let’s shop for office space in Juneau. It’s a 90-day session and they are now going overtime at a price tag of $12,500 a day.

If we controlled the checkbook, my vote would be that we just eat three days of their per-diem and pay a moving company to relocate them all back to their homes. They can set up their office spaces in their garages or basements, put on their suits or appropriate work attire and teleconference whatever work they need to vote on. That would save some money.

— Grant Hedman

Anchorage

OMG, is this for real? Thank you, ADN, for reporting all the bad news from Juneau. If there was a song for this year’s legislative session it should be “Send in the Clowns.” Only this isn’t funny. These bozos need to be voted out of office. They work for 3 1/2 minutes and our tab for the day’s work is $12,500? If I could swing myself a deal like that, I wouldn’t want to end the session on time either.

They agreed at the onset to work on and fix the budget. So far they have planned a retirement party, taken care of puppy custody and done some license plates. They should be put on a time-clock for minimum wage, locked up in a prison and forced to get the job done.

Now I’m wondering what kind of nice remodel they can get from Mark Pfeffer on the Bill Ray Center in Juneau. What’s wrong with these guys?

Oh, I know — everything! They need to go — NOW.

— Vicki Williams

Anchorage

Regarding the issue of legislators paying for their own meals when they dine with lobbyists, Kevin Meyer says he was “trying to think about how that would work.” It really seems pretty simple to me, Sen. Meyer; you simply request separate checks. Alternatively, you can toss your credit card into the pile and tell the server to charge a specific proportion to your card. It’s really not very difficult.

— Tina DeLapp

Anchorage

Let me explain to Sen. Kevin Meyer how paying your own way would work: If you are out to dinner with your wife and two lobbyists, when the check comes and it is $100 (for convenience), your wife and you would owe $50 ($100 dollars split four ways). That is how it would work.

— Michael McKinnon

Anchorage

I’ve just read Shannyn Moore’s piece, (ADN, April 24). She is as indelicate as a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Quite a ways from subtle elegance as a persuader. The contrast between her and Paul Jenkins above the fold could not be greater in content or style. While we are on the edge of sucking out more than half of the Permanent Fund earnings reserve, Jenkins advises the do-nothing Legislature that “rushing the process is silly.”

I am grateful for the relief I find in reading a blunt but accurate telling of the truth from Moore. If she were to disappear from the contributors of the ADN, I imagine I would disappear from the list of subscribers. Thank you for publishing her (and for the many stories of interest from varied sources, as well as columnists Charles Wohlforth and Dermot Cole). This reader hopes for a less ideological Legislature.

— Steve Gibson

Homer

So, Sen. Kevin Meyer accepts a $107 dinner from the lobbyist for the owners of the Legislative Information Office building, aka “Taj Mahawker,” just before his hugely unpopular vote to purchase the building for $32.5 million, (ADN, April 28). Understandably this raises questions about the appearance of impropriety. When queried about the idea legislators pay for their own dinners to avoid such appearances, Meyer’s generously allows how that is a “topic worthy of discussion.” But he is reportedly perplexed by the notion: He states, “We could pay our own way, I’m just trying to think how that would work.”

Seriously?

I realize the good senator is busy thinking important thoughts, while not conducting any meetings, waiting on the House to do its job on oil tax credits. In the meantime, he might consider some higher-cortical rocket science. But please, read slowly, I don’t want anyone’s head to explode. Senator, you could either: order your dinner by separate check and pay the tab yourself; or order on the same tab, and everyone throw down his own credit card and split the tab evenly. Restaurants will really and truly do this for you without complaint. I have frequently practiced both of these complex dinner-tab strategies over the years. But, then again, all my friends must all be rocket scientists.

— Dave Schmid

Anchorage

With regard to the April 28 commentary in ADN by four Bristol Bay youths examining the Pebble project, it is unfortunate they only hear one side of the story. I am a retired metallurgical engineer who spent my entire career in the copper industry. I worked in five different states and visited most of the world’s copper producing sites. I don’t know of a fish being killed by a copper mine in the U.S. in the last 75 years. Oversight of the industry requires mines be contained and Pebble would not be permitted and developed if it weren’t properly contained.

On the contrary, how much pollution has fishing caused in Bristol Bay? How much diesel fuel, gasoline, human waste, garbage, lost nylon gillnets full of rotting salmon, or sunken boats have been left in the water? How many of the fishermen come from Outside and provide no jobs or revenue for Alaska? How successful would fishing be and how long would it last if not for taxpayer-funded fish hatcheries?

Pebble would supply the world with valuable natural resources, provide high-paying jobs to Alaskans, and help fill the deficit in state funding without taking our Permanent Fund or imposing taxes on us.

— Tom Jordan

Glacier View

I applaud Rick Sinnott’s April 26 column in ADN on how the composition of the Alaska Board of Game is overwhelmingly tilted to favor hunters. Sinnott also exposes the myth that only hunters fund wildlife conservation programs.

As a lifetime resident, I’ve been aware of the Pittman-Robertson smokescreen for years, but never took the time to research all the wildlife conservation sources Sinnott lists. I’m a small-game hunter, but always felt the Game Board was not balanced with diverse interests.

— Frank E. Baker

Eagle River

So, the Alaska Senate President Kevin Meyer can’t figure out how to pay for his own meals.

— Cathy Guay

Anchorage

Once all has been said and done by our illustrious legislators, will ADN please print an easily understood breakdown, preferably in chart form, of how each of them voted on all of the issues before them this session? I want to know exactly who ultimately voted in favor of, or against, each and every bill, from corporate taxes on oil companies to guns on campus and sex education in our schools. I don’t think it’s ever been clearly illustrated in the past, especially for those who don’t actually read much.

In addition, I have a feeling that chart might be extremely enlightening in other, more unexpected ways, especially if we had a similar breakdown covering the last five to 10 years. It’s my opinion the Corrupt Bastards Club is alive and well, and needs to be exposed.

— Glenda Dodd

Big Lake

Why have we yet to hear a good reason on why Anchorage School District Superintendent Ed Graff’s contract was not renewed? The two candidates the board decided on do not even come close to matching or exceeding the qualifications Graff has. He is a finalist for a superintendent position in Minnesota, but he doesn’t cut it for Alaska? I have known Graff for 25 years. He taught both of my kids at Gladys Wood Elementary.

— Richard Wooten

Anchorage

Abolish the draft. If not, then, yes — require women as well as men to register. Better yet, provide incentives for all high school graduates to undertake one year of public service.

— Theda Pittman

Anchorage

I agree with John Havelock, (ADN, April 2). I prefer an income tax over either a sales tax or giving up a part of the PFD, out of concern for our citizens who are most dependant on the PFD for income. I also prefer that corporations pay their fair share, and am opposed to our current welfare policies for corporations, like Alaska’s oil tax credits, the IRS tax policies that allowed 27 giant profitable corporations to pay no taxes in 2015, (USA Today, March 8).

If I read the article correctly, many energy corporations will pay no taxes in 2015 and will claim losses for the year. I am also opposed to corporate media calling the U.S. the country with the highest corporate tax rate without disclosing the whole truth about loopholes that allowed GM to pay no taxes in 2015 and GE to pay none in 2010. On the positive side, I am glad to see more women and young people becoming politically active. We need to listen to them.

— Hugh R. Hays

Veteran for Equality, Peace and Justice

Enough is enough. Someone knocks on a homeowner’s door, shoots him and kills his dog. Fortunately, the victim’s mother was not hurt. The suspect is charged with animal cruelty, robbery and assault. Are you kidding me? Oh I forgot — weapons misconduct, too.

This is pathetic! One charge should be sufficient. Attempted murder. And to top it off he gets $20,000 bail with a third-party custodian? Real nice. Nothing like setting him up with an accomplice to help him on his next out-of- season trick-or-treat outing. And he will strike again. Maybe the magistrate who set bail could be his custodian? If he’s not much of a threat to the rest of us, then living with the judge would surely change his life around.

I bet it was the homeowner’s fault for not responding to the doorbell in a timely manner that caused the man to walk away, become agitated, and he respond in a normal way. Sound ridiculous? Perhaps, but not as ridiculous as a weapons misconduct charge.

— Rolf L. Bilet

Anchorage